Dianne Williamson: Beneath beauty, ugliness

By Dianne WilliamsonThe Worcester Telegram

Monday

Apr 20, 2015 at 12:36 PMApr 20, 2015 at 12:36 PM

Last month I was parked outside a bank when a car backed into my fender. The accident was the driver’s fault, as police and insurance have since confirmed, but that didn’t stop her from demanding to know why I didn’t move in time to avoid her, perhaps believing that cars could instantly sense danger and levitate.

I suggested we exchange license and insurance information, but she continued to shriek at me while calling various relatives on her cellphone. She also insisted on calling police, even though the accident was minor. When the cop arrived 20 minutes later, the woman immediately launched into a fabricated account of the fender bender and I lost it.

“Will you please shut up?” I yelled, right in front of the poor police officer. “Just shut up!”

It wasn’t my finest moment. But perhaps we’ve all been there, and nothing can set us off more than incidents involving our cars.

That said, there’s still no excuse for Britt McHenry, the ESPN reporter whose deplorable takedown of a tow company clerk catapulted her to “Nasty Witch on Steroids” status. After watching the viral video, women, especially, instinctively know the following two things:

Britt McHenry is the real-life personification of Regina George in “Mean Girls.”

Britt McHenry has been this way since junior high.

She’s been sidelined for a week by a network that’s been doling out suspensions like breath mints, and I’m thinking she got off easy because her sneering encounter didn’t reflect anger and frustration, which most of us could forgive. No, McHenry’s rant was eerily cool, delivered like an alpha girl accustomed to putting physical inferiors in their place.

The comely blonde’s brush with infamy began when her car got towed, a major annoyance, but by the time she got to the company’s garage she exhibited no signs of meltdown. Instead, McHenry calmly treated the female clerk not unlike one of the evil stepsisters treated Cinderella.

“I’m in the news, sweetheart. I will (expletive) sue this place,” McHenry said. The clerk warned McHenry that she was being recorded, but that didn’t stop her:

“I have a degree and you don’t ... I wouldn’t work in a scumbag place like this ... Maybe if I was missing some teeth they would hire me here ... I’m on television and you’re in a (bad word) trailer, honey.” And the inevitable kicker, “Lose some weight, baby girl.”

McHenry has since apologized, saying, “I allowed my emotions to get the best of me” during an “intense and stressful moment.” Not even close. Watching the video, she looks about as stressed as a woman getting a pedicure.

The Obesity Action Coalition wants a word with McHenry, saying “she could benefit from some expertise and knowledge about obesity and weight bias.” Are they serious? This skinny you-know-what is an expert on weight bias, as she’s a lifelong beneficiary.

Of course, because McHenry is beautiful and the clerk is not, some will dismiss criticism of the reporter as bitterness and schadenfreude. Already, a chivalrous (male) columnist from The New York Post has jumped to the beleaguered Britt’s defense, saying, “It sure is fun to see pretty, successful blondes taken down a notch.”

Please. There’s nothing fun about watching a snooty celebrity launch an ad hominem attack on a woman she considers beneath her. But it is beneficial to see it on camera and be reminded that status doesn’t equal class and that beauty can trigger some truly ugly behavior.

Such inhumane treatment takes place every day behind closed doors. Unluckily for McHenry, the medium that has rewarded her for the looks she lords over others has also taken her down a well-deserved notch.